THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAY 28,1923. THE MENACE TO THE TAIERI.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18873, 28 May 1923, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAY 28 ,1923. THE MENACE TO THE TAIERI.

The recent floods in the Taieri district have left behind them the cause for a melancholy reckoning. The engineer of the Taieri County Council reports that the damage done to. public works alone amounts to at least £20,000. But the damage to roads, bridges, culverts and so forth represents but a fraction of the devastation wrought by the floods at the Taieri. It takes no count of the loss suffered by the settlers over the very large area of agricultural land that was inundated. The effect of the flooding must be to deprive the owners of any yield from this land for a considerable time to come. To the sufferers their recent experience and the consequent outlook must spell a heavy measure of discouragement. What has now happened is only rendered so much the worse because of the cumulative effect of visitations of the kind which the district has endured. To land thrown out of production by previous floods is now added a great deal more which must he temporarily sterile. Over and above all this is the possibility of further flooding, against which there is no assurance whatever. The Taieri has been an exceedingly productive plain, containing as it does land of the very best agricultural quality. The effect of floods in depriving a large acreage of its valuo as agricultural land is becoming altogether too acute. There is little satisfaction to be derived from the explanation of the flooding to which the Taieri has been subject for a good many years past. These recurrent inundations, though anything but a novelty, represent a comparatively recent development, and they are due, as experts agree, to tho silting up of the beds of the Taieri and Waipori Rivers as the result of mining operations carried on in their upper reaches. In the course of years this gradual silting up has created a very serious problem. As mining operations sanctioned by the law of the land have caused the flooding of the Taieri and its liability to flooding, it may be fairly contended that the State, by its action, has contributed to the damage that has been don© to the land in this fertile plain. Different commissions have reported upon the position and have proposed different remedies, but the fact remains that the real problem is as pressing as ever. Perhaps it is more pressing than ever. Tho liability of the Taieri to serious damage on the occasion of heavy rains requires no more convincing demonstration than it has had during the last few weeks, and it is patent that until the Government is prepared to institute a radical measure of protection for the plain ; large area of land must always bo subject to the risk of a recurrence of t! flooding. The members of the Taieri County Council should be able to place a strong case before the Prime Minister when" they interview him and proffer a request for assistance in respect of th« damage done by the flood , waters to public works in. their district. But the claim on the Government does not stop there. The people of the Taieri are entitled to look to the Government of the day to provide a substantial safeguard against the risk of their lands being periodically flooded. The people of Dunedin are necessarily interested in the advancement of the settlers’ claim to have their holdings secured against inundation. A reduction of the pi ductivity of the Taieri district is distinctly a matter of concern to Dunedin, for the prosperity of the Taieri is bound up with that of the city. The people o) Dunedin cannot be indifferent to the losses suffered by the Taieri farmers, and i,t is desirable, therefore, that such representations as may be made to the Government to preserve a valuable agricultural area from periodical disaster should be strongly supported by the public bodies and commercial organisations of the city.